DEATH WISH
ARMED CRUISER THIEF CUT DOWN BY COPS
The career criminal locked in a standoff with troopers in Quincy was shot and killed Friday morning when authorities say he climbed out of a stolen cruiser armed with a police patrol rifle.
The Rockland Police SUV was reported stolen at 6:30 a.m. after a reported armed robbery at a 7-Eleven on Market Street in that South Shore town.
After the suspect, Eric Leach of Brockton and Winthrop, made off with $334 from the store, he ran off, and one Rockland police officer got out of his cruiser to pursue him, forgetting to lock the door, Rockland Police Chief John Llewellyn said.
The 36-year-old suspect then got to the vehicle and drove off, the chief added, triggering a pursuit that ended in his death just before 10 a.m.
Department policy mandates that officers lock the doors whenever they get out of their cruisers, the chief said. The officer, who was “pretty distraught” afterward, likely will be counseled rather than disciplined, Llewellyn said.
State troopers negotiated with Leach for two hours in all Friday morning after he led officers down the highway to Quincy, where he first stopped on a ramp off Route 3 at Burgin Parkway, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said.
“Police had deployed Stop Sticks on Burgin Parkway and helped bring the car to a slow stop,” he said.
The suspect remained there for about an hour, before driving off, and was finally boxed in by BJ’s Gas Station off Liberty Street, Morrissey said.
“During the verbal negotiations, the police observed the suspect in control of a police patrol rifle,” the DA said at a press conference just after noon. “Despite numerous requests to surrender, the suspect started to come out of the passenger door armed with a patrol rifle.”
“I heard one gunshot,” said a woman who lived across the street from the gas station but was too shaken to give her name. “I got down on the floor and made sure my family wasn’t sitting in the front room.”
“They tried,” she said of the police who negotiated with the suspect. “It’s sad. He was young and just threw
his whole life away.”
Leach had a lengthy criminal history, authorities said, that included landing on the state’s Most Wanted list for shooting an 8-yearold Brockton girl in the leg. He was arrested by Brockton Police in 2012 and spent three years in jail for that crime, according to multiple reports.
“It is unfortunate that anybody got shot by anyone. The last thing that I think a police officer wants to do is get involved in a police-related shooting,” Morrissey said. “Their job is to keep all of us safe … They were faced with an armed suspect. They had decisions to make, and those decisions will be reviewed over the next few days.”
Troopers and medics attempted to save Leach, Morrissey said, but he was transported to Boston Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
Morrissey said police attempted to stop Leach numerous times, including an Abington police officer who rolled his vehicle in Rockland, hitting a utility poll. He was injured and taken to the hospital, the DA added.
The MBTA stopped service on the Red Line Between Braintree and Wollaston, but resumed service once Leach was subdued. The commuter rail line in the area was also stopped. Exit 42 off I-93 was also shut down. But commuting slowly returned to normal.